Off to Thailand....

Tomorrow....

It's gonna be a busy trip, gotta a game of cricket in Chaing Mai, also some golf, catch up with some friends, then return to BKK to catch up with my son, plenty of thai food to be eaten, some shopping, more friends, Essendon vs Melbourne AFL, then Bledisloe Rugby, and also State of Origin.

Oh, and, eat some thai food, of course! moo ping, kao neow, kiteow, the list goes on, but I am going to eat so much pork (since Indonesia does not have much)

A Thai-Australian Chamber of commerce networking meeting (read a big piss up for men in suits ;) )

Then the grand finale of the trip, the Asian Champs AFL - 10 footy teams about 300 Aussies.

here's my player profile for this tourney....

"Liam “Sledge” Hammer – former Tiger who is champing at the bit to take his much-celebrated tattoo, drinking and martial arts skills back to Bangkok in the red, black and white jersey. Likes to have a chat on the park and, as a former kung fu champion, has the skills to back it up."

This is what I love about Asia - sports, mates, beers, travel.

and a reminder that all these fantastic sports clubs have websites should u wanna have a read... just check out my links to the right....

Collecting coconuts

It was a slow day for my driver, so he and his mate climbed a tree outside my house to collect some coconuts.... hmmm, yummy.

Preparing the coconuts.....

Enjoying.......
The finished product!

Indonesian Bureaucracy

You may recall the fun I had with my wireless internet bill in thailand..... " Thai Bureaucracy .... "

Well I've been having a similar problem with my satellite TV company now.

I've been suscribing for a year now, get a few sports channels, BBC, movies, action and Australian channel. It's about $30 per month, not too bad and Indo TV is totally woeful.

However, last months bill they decided, without any warning, to change the billing method. Previously the maid would take all the months bills and go and pay at the post office (I think..... to be truthful, I gave her the bills and the money and they all got paid each month, I don't really need to know much more about the process)

Anyway, I digress, in last months bill was a letter,

"we have now decided that the methods of payment are via ATM with the following banks, an exhaustive list followed but did not include any of the banks I use ( I have 3, one for aussie $, one for US$ and one for Indo rupiah) or via direct debit, another list and it did include my bank this time."

by now I have been cut off because I was 2 days late on the bill!

So trundle off to the bank to sign up for direct debit, this takes approx 2 hours, costs my a little extra money but, never mind, that's life. However, it will not start until next month.

OK - give the maid some money and ask her to go pay this months bill.....

she returns, sorry mister, cannot!

Hmmm, I had invited some friends around for a BBQ and to watch the State of Origin rugby match on TV - but no satelite, so I get on the phone and begin trying to explain, not having much luck but the guy says he'll send a technician around tomorrow, I try explaining the tomorrow is too late, so he then asks me do I speak bahasa indonesian, I reply in the negative ( i do a little, but i am getting annoyed and didn't want any mis-translations, this is the english helpline after all!)

I finally agree that a technician will come tomorrow and sort everything out. I then ask can I have a discount since I have had no TV for 2 weeks - he replies rapidly, and, I assume crossly, in Indonesian. I hang up.

Technician turns up the next day, 3 hours late. fiddles with the satelitte for an hour or so, and then tells me I need to pay the bill!

Yes, thanks for that, can I pay you? Nope.

A week later, I get a call, blah blah blah, you need to pay your bill, yes i am trying etc. direct debit starts next month etc. OK you can pay you bill at the BCA bank direct into our savigns account there.

OK - I'll do it later today...

And we'll reconnect your satelittle once you do!

OK, sounds ok. So today I head done to BCA bank, wait in que with money and bill in hand......

no prizes for guessing what I was told.....

yep you are correct,

"Sorry sir, have to use the ATM outside for this"

"but, i dont have an ATM card with your bank, can I just deposit money into this account number? "

"Maaf Pak, tidak bisa" (=Sorry sir, cannot!)

So I am still without TV and still have not been able to pay this flaming BILL!

NB - story continued in the comments section....

Bandung - a W/E trip

Bandung is Indonesia's forth largest city, as such it tends to suffer from traffic and waste management problems (read - is dirty and gridlocked!) and therefore no longer deserves the previous nickname of "The paris of the East"

However, being only 2 hours or so from Jakarta, it is still a popular tourist spot. So i decided to visit last weekend, (and, coincidently, friend was there thur-sat on a staff trip from work). So we meet up Sat morning, and....... slept, mostly, that'll teach me not have have big nights out before going away on holidays!

You can fly there, catch a train or drive.... the drive goes through a lovely set of hills and volcanoes, called Puncak Pass, covered in tea plantations.

There is plenty of accommodation options to choose from, from Sheraton and Hyatts to backpacker guest houses but this w/e for some reason was quite busy, we found a slightly tired looking hotel, that may well have once been quite grand. It was ok.

That evening we got into the car to travel to a place called Kampung Daun, which is quite a famous place to eat Sudanese food (specialty of the area) I assumed that it was in town.... haha.... 1.5 hours later, car petrol gauage on empty (and service stations all closed for the evening ...:( ) we finally (10.00pm) arrived, fortunately we also did find an open petrol station.

The place is a collection of open air gazebos serving as diners tables with a dozen kitchens interspaced between streams and gardens.

Food was good, but nobody bothered to tell me that the Oxtail soup - meant soup, plus a plate of oxtail meat, rice and vegetables, so when that arrived plus the plate of Ribs I ordered i looked like a right greedy bastard.

After that drove back to town and visited 'Embassy' a night club that, as it turned out had DJ Naro (a reasonably well kown Indo DJ) and DJ Missil (French DJ) playing that night. :)

The next day had a bit of a sleep in - funny that! before checking out and travelling to a small mall that had been tarted up to look like a european street, called, strangely enough, Paris van Java ... some good specials on there and I managed to buy some new clothes, had lunch at Black Canyon - dining outside (Bandung is at a high altitude so the temperatures are very pleasant.)

Bandung is also famous for shopping, notably factory outlets for all sorts of name branded clothing, Guess, Pierre Cardin, Hugo Boss etc.

Again spent some money - but at less than $10 per item who's gonna complaign.

After this another travel to the Dago Hills north of the city, and overlooking the city. A coffee shop / art gallery was our destination Selasa Cafe. The coffee was very, very good.

The views were great - though a little overcast.

The art work was not really to my taste. They also do performances there and have a small amphitheatre. This one was called the suffering or something - apprently not supposed to take photos....

Anyway, all in all a nice place to visit, i'll head back there some time again.

a link to a better travel writer than I ... http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2726

golf in asia

One of the pleasant things about living in asia is the quality and availabilty of decent golf courses.

Particularly in Asia, its a place to find some greenery, sounds of birds, water and a fresh breeze. Not really all that expensive either.

just done the road from me is a golf course, i visited the other day (since i'm on holidays i've got plenty of spare time :) )

the greens are lovely, the course has food stalls every few holes (including beer), this particular course had a wierd pink and green knickerbocker uniform for the caddies, who are usually quite pleasant and generally reasonably helpful regarding your golf game.

i wont tell you my score though, it was pretty miserable! haha. and also unfortuanately (for me) when i enquired about membership.... waiting list.....

hmmm - much like the MCC membership list I've been on for the last 15 years, though apparently I should get that sometime this year :) so plenty of cricket and Aussie rules football on its way for me!

Bachelors shopping trolley?

had a mate over yesterday arvo....we had to do a quick beer run since the one long neck in da fridge didnt last particularly long....waiting in the checkout que it sorta occured to me that the only thing missing in this trolley was a great big dinosaur sized lump of red meat!

whaadya think??

BTW - notice the token veggies....

more black magic

i'm on holidays :D - so planning a trip or two, a few friends had reccomended going to Kalimantan and visiting the orang-a-tang sanctuary as a good trip.

I mention this to an Indonesian colleague of mine and she warned me to be careful. The dayak girls there use lots of magic to cast spells on men, so if in a months time i have fallen for a new girl from Kalimantan, you'll all know what happened to me! ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayak_people

story from another website...

The story of bird But and bird Kuwai
The bird Kuwai (Great Argus pheasant), who was cunning and managed to play tricks on bird But (another pheasant-species), also had no beautiful feathers to begin with. That was the reason the two were friends.

A long time ago, when these two birds were still friends, both were quite black and pitiful to look at. The other birds, from the Rhinoceros hornbill "Belengang" down to the tiniest, all had beautiful patterns and colours. Their unimpressive feathers were an embarrassment to these two black birds. One day they got together to discuss the matter: " Why, oh why of all the birds in the world are we the worst looking?" they asked themselves. "Well, as this is the case it would be to our advantage to decorate ourselves" said Kuwai. "What a good idea!" replied as he patterns from the top of Kuwai’s head to the tips of his tail. When he was finished the result was really very successful!

Now it was Kuwai’s turn to paint beautiful patterns on But. However, it did not suit Kuwai at all to have his friend looking beautiful, so he painted him brownish and then determined his part of the decorating fulfilled and added: "My heart is overjoyed because you have really made me look beautiful." When But realised how unimpressive he looked he got very angry at Kuwai and tried to grab him, but Kuwai flew off and disappeared.

So Kuwai is to blame that But will forever stay an ugly bird and is ashamed of his looks. From this time forth he leads a bad life, stays down in the bush and contents himself with wanderings through the undergrowth. Kuwai, on the other hand, with his jazzed-up and attractive plumage sits high up in the branches because among the beautiful birds he now is the king!

For the natives of Sarawak the feathers of Kuwai have magic power. Today, the bird has disappeared in wide parts of Sarawak due to logging.

black magic

My drivers wife has been sick, I managed to determine that she had a pretty bad cough. Not so out of the ordinary I've had a nasty cough or two here in the past year, I attribute a lot of it to the pollution, which i never had living in Bangkok, so I guess the conclusion must be that Jakarta is worse off pollution wise than Bangkok.

Anyway I mentioned this to an Indo friend of mine and the next time she saw my driver she had a conversation with him, of which I could only follow a little.

Translation is that somebody in her family put a spell on her, she had been coughing up a lot of blood, which occurred somewhat suddenly and is obviously not normal, thus there is no other explanation other than a magic spell....

Thankfully she is ok now, but she needs to visit a magic doctor to ensure she is all ok.
(that will cost, however.)

a link to another article about witchcraft in indonesia http://hometown.aol.com/divadelaluna/witch2k.htm

and another...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3247290.stm

1000 Islands Trip

Palau Seribu or thousand islands are just north of Jakarta's harbour. I arranged a school trip to an Island here, called Pramuka Island, for my senior IB Biology class. The students completed a number of hands on studies relating to ecology and envirnomental issues.

here the students were conducting a number of transect lines on some coral reefs, looking at the biodiversity and health of each.


transplanting coral.



Examaining mangroves and seagrasses.... another of the islands we visited for lunch.




some local kids playing on a home built raft ..... also a visit to the turtle hatchery, we later released some turtles back into the wild.